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Saudi Arabia is one of the worst human rights violators on the planet. It’s a bloodthirsty medieval theocracy, where torture, floggings and beheadings are routine. When it comes to head-chopping, in fact, ISIS has nothing on the House of Saud. Even the slightest hint of dissent against this barbaric regime can get you 10 years and 1,000 lashes.
But Saudi Arabia is the darling of the West.
A Saudi official marched in the Je Suis Charlie protests in Paris for the right to free speech two days before a blogger, Raif Badawi, was lashed in the public square for exercising his.
David Cameron, Prime Minister of Great Britain, finagled a seat on the UN Human Rights Council for Saudi Arabia. Irony is reportedly in hiding as I write this.
Now Canada, with the able assistance of Justin Trudeau and his predecessor, will be blessing this gang of anthropophagi with a vast fleet of Light Armoured Vehicles, already beta-tested on the hapless Shi’ite population of Bahrain.
Presumably they won’t be driven by women. Maybe Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion can utter another mild protest about that.
“Jeeps,” Trudeau says. Here is a more detailed description:
Armed with a 25-millimeter, 300-pound chain gun with a range of three kilometers, there isn’t much a modern LAV can’t destroy: airplanes and helicopters, other LAVs, and of course people. It has the aura of some terrible, resilient insect, its many antennae rocking stiffly and synchronized as the whole vehicle recoils into its shock absorbers after it fires. With half of its wheels destroyed, it can still roar deliberately downrange. It has two secondary machine guns for use against personnel, as well as four grenade launchers embedded in its chassis. Its main gun can be replaced with weapons systems that range from a tank cannon to a mortar system capable of firing cluster bombs. Fully amphibious, it has rear propellers that allow it to ford any inland body of water. LAVs can even be parachuted into theatres of war from a C-130 Hercules.
To celebrate the New Year, the monstrous House of Saud executed 47 people on a single day. Badawi is expecting more lashes any moment now. And Canada will be propping up this vile regime with a $15 billion arms deal.
Think jobs. Think profits. And do try to look the other way as screams fill the air and blood continues to flow. Let’s not spoil the honeymoon.
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Image: Flickr/Prime Minister of Canada
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